Isaac Johnson (colonist)

The Revd Isaac Johnson (1601^[1] – 30 September 1630^[2]), a 17th-century English clergyman, was one of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts and the colony's First Magistrate.^[3]

Family background

Baptized at St John's Church, Stamford in Lincolnshire, the eldest son of Abraham Johnson, he grew up at Fineshade, near Luffenham. His grandfather was Archdeacon Robert Johnson, who founded Oakham and Uppingham Schools in Rutland.^[4]

After being educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (matriculating 1614, graduating B.A. 1617 and proceeding M.A. 1621)^[5] where a relative, Dr Laurence Chadderton, was inaugural Master, he was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1620. Johnson was then, on 27 May 1621, ordained a priest in the Church of England by Dr Thomas Dove, Bishop of Peterborough.^[6]

The Archdeacon settled upon his grandson the manor of Clipsham after his marriage in 1623 to Lady Arbella Clinton, second daughter of the 3rd Earl of Lincoln,^[7] whose brother (the 4th Earl) was a leading proponent of the Puritan colonisation of America.

Life

Johnson was the largest shareholder of the Massachusetts Bay Company and was one of the twelve signatories to the Cambridge Agreement on 29 August 1629. In 1630 he sailed with the Winthrop Fleet to America, arriving at Salem on 12 June. He was then one of the four founding patrons of the First Church at Charlestown on 30 July 1630 and provided the land for King's Chapel Burying Ground.^[8]

William Blaxton, his university contemporary,^[9] invited Johnson to Shawmut (now Boston), a move for which Blaxton offered to provide the finance.^[10] At a Charlestown meeting shortly before he died, Johnson renamed the settlement, previously known as Shawmut or Trimountain (on account of three contiguous hills which appear in a range when viewed from Charlestown), as Boston, after the port town in Lincolnshire in England where he lived with his wife before emigrating and his friend, Revd John Cotton, was Vicar of St Botolph's, Boston.^[11]

He died at Charlestown on 30 September 1630, the richest man in the colony. The Admiral (a ship in the Winthrop Fleet) was renamed Arbella after his wife, Lady Arbella Johnson, who predeceased him at Salem by one month.^[12]

See also

• New England Colonies

References

1. Irons, E.A., “Isaac Johnson: A Memoir”, The Rutland Magazine and County Historical Record, 1908, Volume 3, Rutland Archaeological and Natural History Society, Chas. Matkin, 1908, p. 78. The date of his birth in sources varies widely: Irons notes that his mother died "a few days after giving birth a son who was named Isaac at his baptism on lst July, 1601, in St. John’s Church, Stamford—a family tradition states that Isaac was born at Clipsham".
2. Anderson, Robert Charles. The great migration begins: immigrants to New England, 1620–1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society. Boston. ISBN 088082042X. OCLC 33083117.
3. www.colonialsociety.org
4. www.british-history.ac.uk
5. "Isaac Johnson (JHN614I)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
6. "Johnson, Isaac (CCEd Ordination ID 143311)". The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
7. "www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk". Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
8. Irons, p. 86, notes that, "Most likely" he had gone to Charlestown for [a] Meeting, had died there and was buried with his wife at Salem. But so much romance has been woven round the original foundation of Boston that it is now very hard to ascertain the actual facts: yet it appears certain that Isaac Johnson however he may have visited the place and suggested its name never actually dwelt there and most certainly did not die nor was buried there."
9. Morison, Samuel Eliot (1963). The founding of Harvard College. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674314504. OCLC 18650219.
10. Goodwin, Gordon (1892). "Johnson, Isaac" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 30. p. 15.
11. Irons, p.86
12. Hubbard says “Among others that were at that time visited with mortal sickness, the Lady Arabella, wife of Mr. Isaac Johnson, was one who, possibly, had not taken the counsel of our Savior to sit down and count the cost, before she began to build. For, coming from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, which she enjoyed in the family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants, it proved too strong a temptation for her; so that the virtues of her mind were not able to stem the tide of those many adversities of her outward condition, which she, soon after her arrival, saw herself surrounded with. For, within a short time after, she ended her days at Salem, where she first landed; leaving her husband, a worthy gentleman of note for piety and wisdom, a sorrowful mourner, and so overwhelmed with grief, that about a month after, viz. September 30, 1630, death carried him after her into another world, to the extreme loss of the whole plantation.”

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Goodwin, Gordon (1892). "Johnson, Isaac". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 30. p. 15.